


Chocolate Chip Pancakes

by nephirious



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Birthday, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Homesickness, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Gets Love and Affection, Lance's Birthday, Lance's Birthday Week 2018, Light Angst, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), it's what he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 19:57:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15517440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nephirious/pseuds/nephirious
Summary: With a swish, the metal door slides open, and Lance hisses at the sudden stream of light from the hallway. He buries his face in his pillow as Hunk ambles toward Lance’s bed, arms crossed. “Lance,” he begins, his tone gentle, but serious. “What’s going on, dude?”He groans tiredly in response. “Lance isn’t home right now,” he mumbles, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Leave a message.”





	Chocolate Chip Pancakes

The strong, determined knock on his door echoes throughout the room, the sound bouncing along the bare white walls.

Lance raises his head wearily, rubbing his bleary eyes, but makes no move to respond. _Go away_ , he thinks, kneading his knuckles into his temples. _Go away, go away, go away_.

But it seems as if his uninvited guest is willing to do no such thing. The knocks sound again, forceful but not impatient. From beyond the doorway, a voice calls out cautiously. “Lance? Are you in there, buddy?”

Of course it’s Hunk. If there’s one person in this castle that would bother to come check on him, it’s the yellow paladin. His very best friend and partner in crime since the two of them had met at the Garrison’s freshmen orientation meeting. And yeah, Lance loves him to death, but right now, he just wants to be _alone_ –a feat that’s surprisingly challenging, given that this enormous _freaking_ castle only has seven inhabitants. 

But Hunk has never been one to give up that easily. “Come on, Lance. Don’t make me come in there.”

Again, Lance doesn’t bother with a reply, instead rolling over to face the wall.

“Alright, you asked for it,” Hunk muses. With a swish, the metal door slides open, and Lance hisses at the sudden stream of light from the hallway. He buries his face in his pillow as Hunk ambles toward Lance’s bed, arms crossed. “Lance,” he begins, his tone gentle, but serious. “What’s going on, dude?”

He groans tiredly in response. “Lance isn’t home right now,” he mumbles, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Leave a message.”

Hunk chuckles good-naturedly. “Okay then,” he says patiently. “Well, when he gets back, ask him why he skipped breakfast. I made chocolate chip pancakes. You know, his favorite breakfast food of all time? Or the space equivalent, at least, but it was pretty close.”

Lance only grunts vaguely in response. Hunk exhales, the sound deep and worn-out. He’s wearing his no-nonsense face, eyebrow quirked and all. “Lance, does this have anything to do with…you know. What day it is today?”

The blue paladin’s blood turns to ice in his veins. He sits up quickly, not quite able to meet Hunk’s eyes. “What do you mean?” he squeaks out, a little too fast, a little too high.

Hunk gives his friend a strange look. “Well, you know. Shiro wanted to try out a new training program today. It looked super intense, so I can’t really blame you for wanting out, but we’ve all got to be there,” Hunk explains, ending his thought with a slight shrug.

A sigh escapes Lance’s lips. Relief? Disappointment? He isn’t really sure. His emotions are all jumbled up in his head, thoughts mixed and incoherent as if someone had used a salad tosser on his brain. “Oh,” he replies lamely, and his voice is hollow. Empty. Pathetic, something inside him supplies, but he forces that thought down. “Right. Yeah, that’s all it is. Guess I’m not feeling too well. Didn’t want to bring the team down.”

Lance lets out a surprised noise as Hunk suddenly presses the back of his hand to Lance’s forehead. The larger paladin frowns slightly. “You don’t have a fever,” he notes. “What’s wrong? Is it some kind of space bug?”

“Oh. I dunno,” Lance says lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m just really tired.” That part, at least, was entirely true. He’d spent most of the night awake, lying on his back with tears rolling down his temples as he’d tried to pretend that the ceiling above him was the ceiling of his room, that he was back home in Cuba, hearing his sister snoring next door through their shared wall. To pretend that, in a few hours, he would look from a window to see the rising sun, bright and hopeful, instead of the cold, inky darkness of space. “Do you think Shiro would mind if I sit this one out?”

Hunk shrugs noncommittally, a mischievous smile tugging at his lips. “I dunno. We were all kind of hoping you’d be there, actually.”

Lance frowns. “Why?”

“Well,” Hunk says, tapping his chin as he draws out the word, “afterwards, we were all gonna hang together. Celebrate our friend’s birthday.”

Lance’s eyes go wide. “You…remembered?”

“Of course!” Hunk says, a grin spreading across his face. He gives Lance a teasing punch to the arm. “How could I forget my best buddy’s birthday?”

“I just…I didn’t…” Lance rubs his arm absently, his brain apparently unable to function properly. 

Hunk remembered. He remembered his birthday. Lance had thought that it would pass without question, just another unmemorable day to add to the collection. But Hunk actually remembered.

“In fact…” Hunk says, his grin widening as he watches his baffled best friend gape like a fish, his mouth opening and closing again before any sound makes it out, “we all wanted to wish you a happy birthday!” 

As if on cue, the door slides open once more, but this time, the rest of the castle’s residents stand on the other side, sporting wide smiles and, to Lance’s amazement, what looks like hand-crafted party hats.

“Happy birthday, Lance!” Allura calls, and the others enthusiastically echo her words, punctuating them with cheers and whoops. Lance stands up, his mind numb and uncomprehending, and slowly joins his friends in the hall. Hunk follows close behind.

Pidge runs up to him, immediately wrapping her small arms around his torso. “Happy birthday!” she cries, and Lance lightly chuckles at the sight of the green paladin, hair sticking up at every possible angle under her bright green party hat.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us!” Allura chides playfully, nudging his shoulder with her own.

Lance tries to look sheepish, but he’s suddenly smiling too wide. “It never came up.”

“Shiro explained that this is a very important day on Earth!” Coran says enthusiastically, holding a gloved index finger up. He beams at the blue paladin, pride shining in his eyes. “Look at you!” The older man tugs at Lance’s ear affectionately. “You’re an adult now!”

“We don’t exactly have what we need to perform a proper ceremony here,” Allura says shyly, “but we’ve put together a few activities that you might enjoy? Think of it as your ‘birthday party,’ as Hunk called it.”

“Your _space_ birthday party!” Hunk chimes in, plopping a blue party hat onto Lance’s head. “The hats were Keith’s idea.”

The red paladin looks down to the ground at that and shifts his feet uncomfortably, his cheeks darkening to match the color of his own hat.

Shiro makes his way over to Lance and slides his metal arm around his shoulder. “Happy birthday, kiddo,” he says softly, patting his back with an affection that strikes Lance as fatherly.

He swallows thickly as he looks around at his smiling friends, his eyes burning with gratitude. “You guys…” he sniffles, rubbing at his face. “Oh god. You guys are the best. _Thank you_.” His voice breaks slightly on the words. “Thank you so much.”

In response, Hunk pulls Lance into his chest, squeezing him into a bone crushing hug. Keith is the next to join in, awkwardly throwing his arms around Lance’s back. And then they’re all hugging in this sweaty, massive group hug, and Lance’s heart is practically bursting with love for the people around him.

Maybe he hadn’t asked to be stuck here in space with these people, fighting a 10,000 year old war. Maybe a lot of things aren’t exactly ideal. But in this moment, Lance feels like everything turned out alright.

It’s not home, that much is for sure. He misses the warmth of his mother’s embrace, the feel of his father’s rough fingers ruffling his hair. The smell of the ocean air, the sound of his _abuela’s_ laughter, rich and deep and filled with life. He misses home, but that’s okay. For now, he has a new family to cherish. And maybe that’s all he really needs.

_“We love you, Lance.”_

––

“Happy birthday,” Leah McClain murmurs humbly, her fingers tracing the smooth glass frame of the photograph. “We love you very much, _mijo_.” 

Her husband lays a comforting hand across her trembling shoulders as he places a plate of steaming chocolate chip pancakes beside the picture frame.

_“We miss you, Lance.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr! [@nephirious](https://nephirious.tumblr.com/)  
> A huge thank you to my lovely beta! Find them on tumblr![ @i-mean-you-are-welcome](http://i-mean-you-are-welcome.tumblr.com/)


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